Getting to some real mid-summer vibes here at the Soil Factory!
It has been a very productive day so far, with recordings, insect collecting with a community member at the Soil Factory, color-tint tests with cyanotypes, image taking, and preparing for the pot luck and listening session tonight here at The Soil Factory!
Today I took one of the images from yesterday and decided to run color-tests with it. I cut up one of the less successful still images and then cut tiny squares out, and then soaked them in six different solutions
The bottom left has been soaked in a passionflower infused spring water as the base, the one above it was passionflower infusion using tap water. The middle section used oregano for the infusion: the bottom, using spring water for the base, and the top middle used tap water. The column on the right used spearmint, with the bottom being spring water and the top tap water. I’ve left the original image behind it so that you can see how much the color has changed.
You can learn more about the methods I used in Annette Golaz’ book, Cynaotyp Toning: using botanicals to tone blueprints naturally. I admit that I was really rooting for the passionflower tea, but speamint and oregano definitely are having a bigger impact overall!
It was a good morning for still images. I’m still trying to figure out how to capture the grass here in the morning exactly how I want to, but this is definitely getting closer
And of course, it was great fun to go to Ecovillage Ithaca this afternoon and collect a few insects for the project (image for that will come tomorrow). I really enjoyed seeing how the community was laid out, and what a fantastic intentional living space.
One of the things I really enjoyed about walking around the village was the pebble/gravel walkways. When I first moved out on my own to Rhode Island from Colorado when I went to college, one of the things I missed the most was the sound of gravel and dirt under my feet. I still get excited whenever I hear it, because it is something that is so special that you definitely don’t notice until it is no longer there.
I anticipate a late evening, so I’ll post about the potluck and listening session tomorrow instead of doing it after the event tonight!
